


Lost myself again (but I remember you)

by rightings



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-04 23:22:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14603970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rightings/pseuds/rightings
Summary: He no longer heard her voice, or any of the songs she sang to him.





	Lost myself again (but I remember you)

**Author's Note:**

> hi :) a few notes before i begin  
> -there are some pretty major iw spoilers here! i waited until a little after the movie came out to post this so everybody has the chance to watch the movie but if u still didnt watch the movie!!! don't read this!!!!  
> -im fully aware that theres about 1000 other fics on here w the same exact idea of this one but i really wanted to be emo and cry over these two so this is that  
> -that being said, this is pretty different from all the stories i write (which are usually pretty comedic and light) so im sorry if this is off or terrible, especially since i sobbed my way through writing this  
> -title is from billie eilish's six feet under  
> -enjoy xx

There’s something strange in the way people glorify the memories of a deceased person; like how you hear the sound of their voice as if they were still here, or if you see their face following you wherever you go. 

 

Steve, of all people, would know that it’s not true. He experiences it first when he loses Sarah Rogers. At her funeral, he could hear his mother whispering the lullabies she sang to him as a child. He could see her reacting to every move he made. She even told him to stand up straighter instead of slouching when he stood by her grave. The furrow between her brows and the glare in her eyes made him snap back into the correct position in a second flat. 

 

Three years later, when he and Bucky lied on their backs, shirtless in the middle of the kitchen floor, hoping for the slightest breeze of cool in the unforgiving heat of July, he could no longer see her yell at them for being so damn lazy. He didn’t see the borderline amused, I’m-supposed-to-be-mad-at-you frown on her lips. He couldn’t see her face outside of the repetitive sketches of her in his sketchbooks. The ones where the recent drawings were inspired by the older ones he did based off of memory. He no longer heard her voice, or any of the songs she sang to him. He knows the lyrics; he swears to god he knows them by heart, but anytime he tries to reminiscent, the pitch is always off, and the rhythm falters. 

 

It’d hurt a lot more than it already did pain him if Bucky wasn’t right by him. 

 

When Bucky falls off that train, Steve hears her voice for the first time in nearly 10 years. Her absence hits him harder than ever, because he knows a reason why he held on for so long is because Bucky carries a part of Sarah. He promises himself he won’t forget Bucky— he _won’t._

His heart aches with every passing second and he doesn’t know how to breathe anymore. He feels the air passing in, he holds it for a beat, and releases it. He slows the process down: Inhales for 6 seconds, holds for 4, and releases for 7. He hopes that it’ll make the twist in his heart ease, if only by a little. That only makes it worse because he remembers Bucky helping him through an asthma attack. 

 

The brave face he’s put on for so long, the one that didn’t allow him to shed a single tear at his own ma’s funeral, the one that made him go through war, the one that made him stand up through a broken nose and a swollen eye— that very face that’s been with him for 27 years, it finally breaks. Because all this time he’s done it for Bucky, so Bucky wouldn’t cry, so Bucky wouldn’t fight alone, so Bucky wouldn’t worry. It’s all for Bucky, and now… Bucky isn’t here anymore. So who’s he trying to please? Who’s he being strong for? Who’s he still here for? Alive for? 

 

Steve cries. And cries, and cries, and his throat turns sore with it all. His eyes are so swollen he can’t see straight- or maybe that’s just the fuzz in his brain talking. He tries drinking his sorrow away, but after taking 15 separate shots, he chugs it straight from the bottle, focusing on the sting of it down his throat as a means to distract him from the stinging in his heart. 

 

For the first time since the serum, Steve wishes he were small again, because maybe if he were small, the chances of him dying would be greater than those with his big, healthy, new body. 

He goes on that plane because he’s still got a duty, goddamn it, and he’ll serve it, broken heart or not. He’s got that picture of Peggy in his compass, and, hidden underneath, the one of Bucky. He tries, if only a little desperately, to convince himself that it’s all he needs. He convinces himself that when he crashes the plane down, it’s for his country. 

 

It only takes 70 years, when he wakes up in a strangely familiar bed, for it to occur to him that it was a suicide attempt. 

If he thought the bed was strange, what’s outside is even more strange.

He’s not alone. He’s got Natasha, Sam, Fury, and Peggy, even if her memory is as unreliable as his lungs were back in the 20’s. He isn’t alone, and he’s okay. He’s saving the world, like he always wanted to, and he’s not dying, so there’s always that. 

 

He isn’t alone, but when that mask falls off and he sees Bucky’s face, his heart aches with the intensity of how much he misses him. How much he misses having someone by his side all the time. SHIELD helps him, they do, but it’s a job thing— there’s protocol, and standard behavior. Bucky is Bucky and there’s nothing standard about him. Instead, there’s love and idiocy and hurt and friendship and _so much_ love.

 

He hears him say, “Who the hell is Bucky?” and Steve berates himself for forgetting Bucky’s voice. He sounds rough, and confused, and so out of place, but it’s undoubtedly Bucky, and Steve can’t believe he forgot the sound of it. 

 

Steve gets stabbed for Bucky. He takes a punch for Bucky. Several punches, and bruised ribs, and a swollen eye, and an aching heart, but he does it and would do it again in a heartbeat. Bucky’s got a mission to kill Steve and Steve wants to explain that a few broken bones won’t kill Steve. He wants to tell him that if he actually fought Bucky back- that would kill Steve. But he can’t, so he lets the exhaustion and pain seep into his bones, lets Bucky climb over him and punch him a few more times. He takes it as an opportunity to tell him they were friends. They _are_ friends. Takes it as an opportunity to study the tiny, gold specks in his gray eyes; gray eyes that are swimming with confusion, frustration, and so soft, barely there— recognition. 

 

Maybe it’s his brain being punched out of awareness, but he swears Bucky pulls him out of the Potomac. He holds onto that memory, despite the fuzziness and hazy feel of it all— he holds onto it until the next time he sees Bucky. 

 

The next time he _does_ see Bucky, he puts on a mask. It sinks into his head that Bucky is an assassin for Hydra, so he tries to be strict and demanding. The softness and familiarity ultimately seeps through when he says, “You know me?” 

Almost takes over when he says, “This doesn’t have to end in a fight, Buck.” 

Pours out through his eyes when Bucky pushes him to the ground and climbs over him in a position that’s so similar to that of the helicarrier, that Steve thinks Bucky is going to punch him again. Except he goes for a few inches shy of Steve’s face and looks Steve in the eye when he does it; says, “I’m not going to kill anybody.” 

 

The mask cracks but he puts it back on again, and ignores the roar in his heart, when Bucky says, growly and raspy and destroyed and everything he’s ever dreamed of, “Your mom’s name is Sarah. You used to wear newspapers in your shoes.” 

Bucky smiles and Steve feels all the fucking fibers in him tangle and untangle- grasping and reaching out for him. 

Work is work, and Steve won’t let the unconditional love he has for Bucky distract him from that, so he questions Bucky about The Winter Soldier and pushes down the urge to hug him and pet his hair and maybe make him take a shower. 

 

It’s a long fight and it’s definitely not resolved and Steve is tired and his heart is broken and it aches, but fuck him up the ass if he ever decides to dictate Bucky’s choices when he finally has the freedom the voice them out loud. He keeps quite when Bucky decides that he wants to go back in cryo. He resolutely does not cry, even if he feels strangled with the pain of it all. 

The same very mask he put on at his ma’s funeral for Bucky is back again. Because he has Bucky to be strong for, to be alive for. 

 

He wishes for better circumstances to see Bucky again, but the Avengers are no longer the Avengers, he’s been away for a good while now trying to find himself, and he’s been giving Bucky the space he needs. It’s like that for a year or two and Steve pathetically tells himself he doesn’t have an aching Bucky-shaped hole in his chest. There’s no use denying it anymore when they land in Wakanda, and T’Challa shows them around. He can’t deny it anymore because Bucky is right there, with a new arm, longer hair, and the biggest smile Steve’s seen him wear this century. He can’t deny it anymore because Bucky absolutely melts in Steve’s embrace; melts so, so softly that he fits right in that hole. The hug is 10 hours shorter than it should be, at least. Hell, it’s 67 years too short, but there’s a war and there’s people looking at them both, so Steve cuts the hug short in lieu of staring doe-eyed at Bucky. 

 

Steve should really give up his shield: the thoughts going through his head don’t belong to Captain America. He must be really fucked up to think that the war is a good thing if it meant he can have Bucky watching his six again. He can’t believe he’s gone so long denying himself the right to admit his love for Bucky, because now that his body is fully aware of it, it’s almost overwhelming. Every sense is taken over with affection and he seriously can’t breathe with Bucky within his proximity. He swears that when this is over, he’s not denying it to anybody— not himself, not Bucky, not the whole fucking world. Fuck Captain America and whatever bullshit propaganda he’s been putting out for the last 70 years, fuck him and war bonds he’s been selling, fuck him and every single moment where he said he believed in the freedom of every citizen, fuck him for preaching about that bullshit when Steve Rogers has been hiding himself for Captain America’s sake. 

 

It hurts and it isn’t working out and everything is fucked up but Steve is fighting for something. There’s something to look forward to. It isn’t like World War II when he lost Bucky and his mom and all he knew was ending it all; he wasn’t even sure if it was his life or the war he wanted to stop. This time, he has Bucky and fuck everything and everybody if he lets him go. 

 

There's a still moment when everything is quiet. 

Steve braces himself for it.

So, so quiet, “…Steve?” 

It’s small, confused, and it takes Steve back to their small, hole-in-the-wall apartment when Bucky came home from the docks just to find Steve sitting by his ma’s bed. 

Steve turns around so fast that he loses his footing. Stumbling into Bucky’s space, he puts an arm around Bucky’s shoulder… Bucky’s shoulder that is currently fading right under Steve’s hold. Bucky falls gracelessly to the floor, and Steve sinks to his knees right with him, trying to desperately grab onto whatever is left of Bucky. He manages to hold onto his hand for a second before that fades away, too.

 

Steve’s not the only one who loses someone. He learns Sam is gone, along with T’Challa, Wanda, Peter, Nick, and Maria. He finds Tony, kneeling on the ground, with his hands clenched around nothing on his lap— almost like he was holding something, someone. Steve falls onto the rubble right next to Tony and falls apart. His chest heaves with every breathe he takes and shudders with every breathe he releases. He sobs, open and loud and ugly. Maybe if he wasn’t crying as loudly as he was, he’d have heard Tony taking shaking breathes right next to him. 

 

They'd make a pretty picture, if anyone saw them. Tony with his head on Steve’s shoulder, burying his nose into Steve’s collarbone, and Steve with his head down. Except nothing about this is pretty. There’s nothing nice about death, there are no lasting memories, no good times, and no angelic ghosts visiting him at night. There’s only pain, hurt, and nightmares of all the ways he’s let everyone down. There are no voices telling him it’s okay, there’s only his own voice taking up all the space, raw and hoarse from the screaming. He doesn’t see Bucky’s face everywhere he goes, he only sees the guilt that takes his every breathe. He wants to fucking die and there’s no other way about it. 

 


End file.
